34494: Playing a recording of Qur’aan when putting someone on hold

Sometimes we have to put a caller on hold and ask him to wait for a little while because we are speaking to another, more important, caller, and that may take a long time. Or we are putting a caller through to the person he wants to speak to, so he has to wait for some time until that person answers. During the waiting period the caller can listen to some suitable recorded material. We wanted to fill the waiting period with religious material, whether it is recording of the Qur’aan or of hadeeth. What is the ruling on doing that? Please note that the conversations may be serious or lighthearted, depending on who is calling.

Praise be to Allaah.

This is not something that is prescribed or allowed in
sharee’ah, and it may be a cause of the Qur’aan being mistreated and not
respected properly. The same applies to the hadeeth of the Prophet
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).

The Standing Committee was asked a similar question and
replied:

The Qur’aan is the word of Allaah, so it must
be respected and protected against anything inappropriate such as mixing it
with jokes before or after it or using it as a kind of entertainment or to
fill spare time as in the case you described. Rather it should be recited
primarily as an act of worship and in order to draw closer to Allaah,
pondering its meanings and seeking to learn lessons from it, not just to
relax and fill spare time. The same applies to the hadeeth of the Prophet
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him); it is not permissible to
mix it with jokes and laughter, rather it must be protected from anything
inappropriate and when one reads it, that should be with the intention of
learning the rulings of sharee’ah and acting upon them.